Ричард Бейкер - Valiant Dust

So that is what this is about, she decided. Her uncle was worried about establishing a clear line of succession. “A plan?” she asked cautiously.

“It seems to your aunt Yasmin and me that there are not many suitors of your station on Gadira,” Sultan Rashid said. “As the daughter of a planetary sovereign, you should most properly be married to the son of a royal house of similar rank. So we have settled upon the idea of sending you on an extended visit to the core systems of the Caliphate. You can begin by making your hadj to Terra. Then you can undertake studies at any of the proper schools, and attend various royal courts. We have relatives in the Caliphate worlds willing to sponsor you, and introduce you to men of suitable rank. I think three years should be sufficient.”

“Three years?” Ranya felt a flutter of panic at the idea. While it was true that she was not likely to find a husband on Gadira, she didn’t particularly want a husband at the moment. She had friends and interests at home that she did not wish to leave … and she was also very concerned that no one else in House Nasir could replace her in the administration of the sultanate’s affairs. The Montréalais would see to it that Sultan Rashid did not fall, but what kind of world would she come home to? “Uncle, I am not sure I can afford to leave Gadira for three months, let alone three years. The Caidist troubles grow worse every day. They demand the full attention of our house, and I can be of great help to you.”

Sultan Rashid reached over to pat her arm. “My dear, there will always be troubles. I cannot ask you to delay your own happiness forever simply because we can’t look past the challenges of the day. And no one is indispensable—it will be good for the rest of us to take on some of your burden.”

Ranya did not answer immediately. She glanced out the window again, gathering her thoughts; the coastal mountains faded into the dusty haze behind the aerial motorcade, while the multicolored sprawl of Tanjeer’s fields, orchards, and outlying districts passed by two thousand meters below. She felt that she was a good deal more indispensable than her uncle realized, but Rashid could be surprisingly stubborn if openly defied. Besides, a part of her was not entirely opposed to the idea. She hadn’t ever left Gadira, and the opportunity to see dozens of new worlds tempted her. She could think of a friend or two who would come with her if she asked; it might be something of an adventure. But not right now, she decided.

She glanced back to Sultan Rashid. “When do you want me to go?” Her uncle had a habit of coming up with grand ideas, but then forgetting about them when something else caught his attention. In the time between this conversation and the day she was supposed to leave Gadira, the whole idea might slip his mind.

“It may take some time to finalize the arrangements,” Rashid answered. “I have taken the liberty of sending messages ahead to some of our offworld relations—the Birkols of Tau Ceti, the al-Firats, Shah Norouzi of Khorasan III. We won’t see any replies for a month or two yet. But I see no reason why it shouldn’t be later this year.”

He means well, Ranya reminded herself. It grated on her to learn that her uncle was laying plans to float her around the Caliphate worlds like a fly fisherman trying to hook a prize catch. And the fact that he’d already sent letters ahead meant that for once Sultan Rashid was putting one of his grand ideas into action. She might not be able to evade this offworld tour after all, and of course, she would be expected to return with a husband, or at least some good prospects for one. She wasn’t completely inexperienced with men—the more permissive quarters of Gadiran society turned a blind eye to affairs carried on with discretion, and even a princess was entitled to some privacy. But opportunities for serious relationships, as Rashid observed, were more than a little limited for Ranya. She knew next to nothing about the process of catching a husband.

“Later this year?” she said, still trying to grapple with the thought. “I will give some thought to passing my responsibilities along to a replacement. And finding some companionship for the trip.”

“That’s the spirit.” Sultan Rashid beamed. “I had the good fortune to make a similar journey as a young man, when your grandfather was still sultan. Oh, I wasn’t looking for a wife at that point, but I had the opportunity to visit dozens of worlds and see wonders that I could not have imagined before I left Gadira. We live on one small planet, Ranya, but there is a much greater universe out there. You can’t truly understand that until you see it for yourself.”

Ranya glanced out the window again, wondering how much she would miss her home. She dealt with offworlders every day, and she knew that many of them privately considered Gadira to be a miserable and backward system indeed. The contrast between the sprawl of Tanjeer’s squalid suburbs, now passing beneath the sultan’s skycade, and the white walls of El-Badi Palace, with its surrounding gardens and parks, certainly offered little to be proud of. There were cities in the core worlds of the Coalition that were a hundred kilometers across, skyscrapers like artificial mountains, orbital palaces, markets where the goods of a hundred worlds were bought and sold … What was that?

Five thin smoke trails suddenly leaped into existence from the tree-covered expanse of a large cemetery just off the flight path of the sultan’s flyer. Ranya happened to be looking out the window at the very moment they launched, so she saw them before anybody else. Pure surprise froze her for a half second as the weapons streaked up from the ground; the exhaust plumes looked like gray daggers reaching up for her. Then she found her voice. “ Missiles right! ” she screamed.

Lieutenant Colonel Raoul Yusir, a highly experienced veteran, had the honor of serving as the sultan’s personal pilot. The position was perhaps the most prestigious assignment in the entire Royal Guard, and he’d fought his way through months of competitions and training to win the post. Today that rigorous selection process proved its value—the instant Ranya shouted her warning, Colonel Yusir slammed the throttle to the stops and dove down and away from the threat.

The luxury transport’s inertial compensators did their best to accommodate the violent maneuver, but even so Ranya was thrown against her window. Her uncle grunted in surprise as he flailed sideways against the restraints in his seat. When Ranya got her bearings again, the missiles were almost on top of them.

Smoke trails—rockets, not induction motors, she noted with an oddly clinical interest. Years of familiarizing herself with the sultanate’s military aid from Montréal had its benefits. Cutting-edge ground-to-air weapons were hypersonic missiles with gravity induction drives. They wouldn’t have left any smoke for her to spot, and would have hit the sultan’s skycade in the blink of an eye. Metallic hydrogen rockets or more primitive chemical propellants powered older weapons. She watched the first of the rockets swerve suddenly to one side to follow one of the escort flyers. And they’re guided, too! That almost certainly meant they were offworld arms. Plenty of industrial facilities on Gadira could manufacture an unguided rocket, but building a seeker head was another matter altogether.

The question abruptly ceased to be of merely clinical interest when the first rocket reached the Royal Guard flyer escorting the sultan’s transport. The weapon detonated in a powerful blast that ripped one engine off the escort and peppered its fuselage with lethal shrapnel. The stricken flyer—four Royal Guards, men who’d been around Ranya all of her life—tumbled end over end toward the crowded city streets below.