Tabitha shortened the mainsheet and left it in a snap cleat. “Still,” she said, “Avalonians of either kind don’t mass-produce entertainment the way I hear people do in the Empire. You won’t find much on the screens except news, sleepifyingly earnest educational programs, and classic dramas which probably won’t mean a thing to you. So… when you get bored, tell me and I’ll arrange for your quartering in a town like Gray or Centauri.”

“I don’t expect to be,” he said, and added in measured softness, “Tabitha.” Nonetheless he spoke honestly when he shook his head, stared over the waters, and continued: “No, I feel guilty at not grieving more, at being as conscious as I am of my fantastic good hide.”

“Ha!” she chuckled. “Someday Ill’count up the different ways you were lucky. That was an unconverted island you were on, lad, pure Old Avalonian, including a fair sample of the nastier species.”

“Need an armed man, who stays alert, fear any animals here?”

“Well, no doubt you could shoot a spathodont dead before it fanged you, though reptiloids don’t kill easy. I wouldn’t give odds on you against a pack of lycosauroids, however; and if a kakkelak swarm started running up your trousers—” Tabitha grimaced. “But those’re tropical mainland beasties. You’d have had your troubles from the plants, which’re wider distributed. Suppose a gust stirred the limbs of a surgeon tree as you walked by. Or… right across the ridge from where you were, I noticed a hollow full of hell shrub. You’re no Ythrian, to breathe those vapors and live.”

“Brrr!” he said. “What incurable romantic named this planet?”

“David Falkayn’s granddaughter, when he’d decided this was the place to go,” she answered, grave again. “And they were right, both of them. If anything, the problem was to give native life its chance. Like the centaurs, who’re a main reason for declaring Equatoria off limits, because they use bits of stone and bone in tool fashion and maybe in a million years they could become intelligent. And by the way, their protection was something Ythri insisted on, hunter Ythri, not the human pioneers.”

She gestured. “Look around you,” she said. “This is our world. It’s going to stay ours.”

No, he thought, and the day was dulled for him, you’re wrong, Tabitha-Hrill. My admiral is going to hammer your Ythrians until they have no choice but to hand you over to my Emperor.

Week after fire-filled week, the Terran armada advanced.

Cajal realized that despite its inauspicious start, his campaign would become a textbook classic. In fact, his decision about Avalon typified it. Any fool could smash through with power like his. As predicted, no other colonial system possessed armament remotely comparable to what he had encountered around Laura. What existed was handled with acceptable skill, but simply had no possibility of winning.

So any butcher could have spent lives and ships, and milled his opposition to dust in the course of months. Intelligence data and Cajal’s own estimate had shown that this was the approach his enemies expected him to take. They in their turn would fight delaying actions, send raiders into the Empire, seek to stir up third parties such as Merseia, and in general make the war sufficiently costly for Terra that a negotiated peace would become preferable.

Cajal doubted this would work, even under the most favorable circumstances. He knew the men who sat on the Policy Board. Nevertheless he felt his duty was to avoid victory by attrition — his duty to both realms. Thus he had planned, not a cautious advance where every gain was consolidated before the next was made, but a swordstroke.

Khrau and Hru fell within days of the Terrans’ crossing their outermost planetary orbits. Cajal left a few ships in either system and a few occupation troops, mostly technicians, on the habitable worlds.

These forces looked ludicrously small. Marchwarden Rusa collected a superior one and sought to recapture Khrau. The Terrans sent word and hung on. A detachment of the main fleet came back, bewilderingly soon, and annihilated Rusa’s command.

On Hru III the choths rose in revolt. They massacred part of the garrison. Then the missiles struck from space. Not many were needed before the siege of the Imperials was called off. The Wyvans were rounded up and shot. This was done with proper respect for their dignity. Some of them, in final statements, urged their people to cooperate with relief teams being rushed from Esperance to the smitten areas…

Meanwhile the invaders advanced on Quetlan. From their main body, tentacles reached out to grab system after system in passing. Most of these Cajal did not bother to occupy. He was content to shatter their navies and go on. After six weeks, the sun of Ythri was englobed by lost positions.

Now the armada was deep into the Domain, more than 50 light-years from the nearest old-established Imperial base. The ornithoids would never have a better chance of cutting it off. If they gathered everything they had for a decisive combat — not a standup slugging match, of course; a running fight that might last weeks — they would still be somewhat outmatched in numbers. But they would have a continuing supply of munitions, which the Imperials would not.

Cajal gave them every opportunity. They obliged.

The Battle of Yarro Cluster took eight standard days, from the first engagement to the escape of the last lonely Ythrian survivors. But the first two of these days were preliminary and the final three were scarcely more than a mopping up. Details are for the texts. In essence, Cajal made use of two basic advantages. The first was surprise; he had takan pains to keep secret the large number of ammunition carriers with him. The second was organization; he could play his fleet like an instrument, hiring and jockeying the ill-coordinated enemy units into death after death.

Perhaps he also possessed a third advantage, genius. When that thought crossed his mind, he set himself a penance.

The remnants of Domain power reeled back toward Quetlan. Cajal followed leisurely.

Ythri was somewhat smaller than Avalon, somewhat drier, the cloud cover more thin and hence the land masses showing more clearly from space, tawny and rusty in hue, under the light of a sun more cool and yellow than Laura. Yet it was very lovely, floating among the stars. Cajal left that viewscreen on and from time to time glanced thither, away from the face in his comboard.

The High Wyvan Trauvay said, “You are bold to enter our home.” His Anglic was fluent, and he employed a vocalizer for total clarity of pronunciation.

Cajal met the unblinking yellow eyes and answered, “You agreed to a parley. I trust your honor.” I put faith in my Supernova and her escort, too. Better remind him. “This war is a sorrow to me. I would hate to blacken any part of your world or take any further lives of your gallant folk.”

“That might not be simple to do, Admiral,” Trauvay said slowly. “We have defenses.”

“Observed. Wyvan, may I employ blunt speech?”

“Yes. Particularly since this is, you understand, not a binding discussion.”

No, but half a billion Ythrians are tuned in, Cajal thought. I wish they weren’t. It’s as if I could feel them.

What kind of government is this? Not exactly democratic — you can’t hang any Terran label on it, not even “government,” really. Might we humans have something to learn here? Everything we try seems to break down at last, and the only answer to that which we ever seem to find is the brute simplicity of Caesar.

Stop, Juan! You’re an officer of the Imperium.

“I thank the Wyvan,” Cajal said, “and request him and his people to believe we will not attack them further unless forced or ordered to do so. At present we have no reason for it. Our objectives have been achieved. We can now make good our rightful claims along the border. Any resistance must be sporadic and, if you will pardon the word, pathetic. A comparatively minor force can blockade Quetlan. Yes, naturally individual ships can steal past now and then. But to all intents and purposes, you will be isolated from your extrasystemic possessions, allies, and associates. Please consider how long the Domain can survive as a political entity under such conditions.